Ema didn't have high expectations for the amount of action they would see on the second floor. Clearly, the other two teams, since the team numbers ended up being odd, thought otherwise and figured that the third floor would be the dull floor. The logic of that decision was that the royal family slept somewhere and that was probably on the third floor. Gus, Peter, and Chifee decided they could probably do the third floor on their own, so that left Ema's group, which included Darius and Misha, and Rylar, Rykuu, and Aletta to explore the second floor as planned.

The first thing that they discovered was that it was full of what seemed to be guest bedrooms. The first two they came across were decorated in the same way, just mirrored, and they didn't looked very lived in. It looked more like decoration than a place somebody would actually use, with the hyper organization, lack of any sort of clutter, and the impeccable cleanliness. Growing up in a small village, she was more used to places that were cozy, people living in mostly one room houses like she and her mother. Even while doing work for King Skrimir, she felt that her room in the capital was cozy, similar to the way it was in Taelug.

Even rooms at the inn looked cozier in that it didn't feel like you were defiling it by existing in it.

Still, as a group, they made to look inside every room, becoming bored with the sameness of every room. They only thing that seemed to change was the art that was hung up over the bed. However, her ears picked up a quiet voice, one that she was sure Misha couldn't hear but she wasn't so sure how Darius' hearing was relative to her hearing. The voice was quiet to her, it was debatable if he could hear it. At least, both Darius and Misha seemed sensitive to her, so they immediately knew something was up just based on her sudden stillness.

"You hear something?" Misha asked.

"Chanting, I think. I can't understand what they're saying, so it has to be the ancient language," she answered, still trying to focus in on her hearing. It was hard for her completely pinpoint the direction of the voice, how far down the hall the mage was relative to where they were. "We could probably skip the next.. three pairs of doors or so?"

"Well, if they're chanting then they would be facing whatever direction we came from, right? The should be facing the courtyard, no?" Darius asked, walking purposely into the room just to look at the window. Ema was suddenly a little curious, just to see if they could see the tides of the battle outside, and slipped beside him. Indeed, she could see the battle outside and it looked... endless.

She could tell that there must have been a fair amount of mages for the Daein army to just be able to keep up. She watched as light magic made one of them dissipate, only for it rise again almost immediately. She left the window quickly though, mostly because she could tell that Misha was getting a little impatient.

"What's the plan, you two?" she asked, leaning against her lance.

"The battle is on this side, so we'll clear this side of... this side first," Darius said, with his hands on his hips for a moment before they filed out of the room. He seemed proud of himself for that brief moment. She shrugged and followed him out. She wondered if she even had to transform if mages were all they were worried about.

"Let's split up," Misha said. "We'll stay close but I think there is too much ground to cover for us to stay together. If we want to help Daein out and fast, we need to get rid of those mages."

Ema nodded. She didn't want to think about it too much since it would just waste time and they might just start second guessing themselves. That might have just been the laguz blood that yearned for action though. She always admired Syrin for being able to come with a decision to stick to so quickly but not everybody was able to do that. She was concerned that Darius might end up thinking too much about it and she was concerned with his lack of answer as it was. He was thinking, she could tell just by the way his wings fluttered and the way his lips curled inwards. It was just one of those things she picked up from him when they spent so long working together.

However, Darius came through. "We just have to make sure we don't stray too far from each other. Just in case there are sandmen up here."

They split up from there. Misha stayed where they were but Ema ran ahead, rushing to the other end of the hallway and going as far as she could while still keeping Misha insight. If Misha was in any trouble, Ema could make it back in mere seconds if she had to but she also knew Misha could take care of herself, especially if the sandmen were there. Actually, she was the only one who had an enchanted weapon when it came down it, so if anything, she would have to come to their aid. Neither she or Darius could destroy one of them on their own.

Ema pressed her ears against the door at first, trying to see if she could hear the person on the other side and save some time, but she ultimately decided to just play it safe and open the doors instead. She wanted to trust in her senses completely, but she decided that the final battle was not the place to be comfortable, she had had cautious. Even missing one of the mages could be a source of trouble and annoyance, so she had to be thorough.

It didn't take her long to locate a mage, which she could tell not only because her senses went wild but because the door was locked. She could hear every word being said first, even if she couldn't understand it, but she could also smell something. Ema was never so close to one of the mages on her own, without the smell of metal, leather, sweat, blood, and other assorted smells that naturally came with being in a large group. The person was certainly not branded, a smell she ended up learning quite well, but there was certainly something there. Ema wasn't sure she could describe the sort of smell that came with that mage.

Was that the smell of a spirit charmer?

Since the door was locked, she had no choice but to bust inside. She kicked at the door until it finally gave and she was able to get it open. As soon as she had the door open, the mage fired a spell at her, forcing her to side step to dodge it. Ema didn't let it slow her down, pouncing into the room and shifting as she did so, landing on the mage in her laguz form. She was used to be enemies trying to grapple with her, pulling on her fur, or trying to hit her as much as they could with whatever they could. However, the mage seemed to just fall unconscious as soon as they fell to the ground.

Ema shifted back. For some reason, she just didn't feel right killing somebody who could fight back or defend themselves. She eyed the bed and tore the sheets off it, then tore the sheets into long strips to bind the mage's feet and hands together. Somebody else could decide what to with them. When that was done, she headed out, leaving the door opened. She travelled slowly this time, trying to hone her senses on finding another mage.

The hallway had gone quiet. She could still see her companions, poking in and out of rooms, but she was bit too far away for her to hear their footsteps since they were trying to be quiet. She reached the end and opened the last door that was on their side before the room looped around again, which would be where the other group would show up. She opened the door and she could smell the same scent from before, but the room was empty.

They knew they were coming then. She walked inside gingerly, unsure of where the mage would pop out. She went to the bed, since it was located in the centre of one wall and in front of the door, and looked at the other side. It was empty.

Ema screamed in surprise when someone tackled her onto the bed from behind, brandishing a knife at her throat when she struggled to escape their grasp. The mage, with their free hand, shoved her face into the sheets. With her vision obscured and cold metal at her throat, she was reluctant to move. The mage was determined and she decided to give credit where credit was due. They caught her off guard and they were both faster and stronger than they looked.

She heard somebody step into the room but the mage's attention didn't seem to be diverted. She heard a loud crack from behind and the knife fell away from her throat. She twisted herself so she was on her back, looking up as Darius snapped the mage's neck. Darius wasn't usually so direct and he looked so serious. The body fell to his feet and Ema bounced to her feet.

"Ema, are you okay?" he asked quietly. Again, that was how Darius usually was.

"I'm fine. My pride is more wounded than anything else. I can't believe I let somebody sneak up on me," she mumbled with a sigh, just as Misha ran into the room.

"You guys okay? I don't think I've ever seen Darius run that fast before."

"What? Ravens can't run?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest in mock offence. "But out little group is fine! I think we're all cleared up on this side, so perhaps we should meet up with our floor mates?"

Ema nodded but before she left the room, she headed to the window and looked out again. She kept her eyes on one of the sand creatures, looking to see if it would get up again if it fell but to her relief, it didn't revive itself.

"I believe we should."

"I didn't even see anybody," Misha mumbled. "But I've killed enough people, I think."

Ema stiffened. Misha told her what happened between her and her old friend, Cameron. She was still bothered by having to kill him at all even though he turned into somebody Misha couldn't recognize, and the fact that his death hadn't been a clean one bothered her more. Ema was beyond mourning for the people she killed since she didn't know them but Cameron had been somebody who used to be dear to Misha. He wasn't a nameless face to her.

"Yes, hopefully this is the end," Darius said quietly. "I'm looking forward to settling down."

Misha smiled a little. "I think I'll believe that when I see it."

"I'm serious about this. I have a mate and we're going to settle in Daein. With Chifee too probably, I can't leave the little guy behind."

"Again, we'll believe it when we see it." Ema said with a teasing grin. However, she knew that he had plans. He made it clear when they were sent to Crimea that he had wanted that to be his last job, he hoped he would make enough to finally get that life he wanted. Despite being chatty and lively, Ema could also tell that deep down, he was tired. Mot that he looked tired, he was a little too vain for that, but he acted like it sometimes. Ema wasn't a new recruit but she came around after the two previous wars. Darius had participated in both of those and then continued to do mercenary work afterwards.

Darius deserved to kick back and relax for once.

"Okay, let's just get going!" Darius huffed.

Aletta felt her legs shake with every step as they went down the hall. She couldn't tell if she was just scared, and she didn't know why she would be scared at that point of the rebellion, or if she was just excited for the whole thing to finally be over. She missed the security she had in the desert, with people she knew for a long time inside a familiar environment. It was where she grew up. She didn't remember any sort of life outside of the desert. She only went with the rest of the rebellion because Stefan insisted on it.

Except there was the problem of returning without Duma. She didn't know what she would say to the people who asked. She didn't know how Rylar would react – he wasn't likely to freak out at the moment, he seemed pretty calm, though he still carried the air of somebody who was tired. She figured that he was getting better because he had a better sense of duty and because he had some blood family left with Ema. However, that could flip if people overwhelmed him and he didn't have Ema to support him. She hoped they would just go to Stefan for that.

Rylar and Rykuu were speaking but Aletta was distracted by trying to understand just where he was. The hall was long and everything looked the same, which only made it seem longer. It was very disorientating and while she trying not to focus too much on it, it wasn't working for her. She was only pulled away from it when Rylar and Rykuu began jiggling at the doors.

"Augh! This one's locked!" Rylar hissed, jiggling the door handle even more as if that would somehow make it open for him. "I swear, if somebody's back and we're stopped only because of a locked door-!"

"Can't you ram into it, Rykuu?" Aletta asked. She was always amazed by the power of laguz but she supposed part of that was because she never had a negative encounter with them, so she was left to admire their strength. She was most envious of the bird laguz since they could fly and she was stuck on the ground. It was like her blood yearned for the skies.

"I should be able to." However, he looked uncertain. Aletta bet he could but since he was hesitant, then maybe there was something she couldn't understand. Or maybe, he just didn't want to. He tested the next door and he was able to open that one. The first thing she noticed was the window, so she ran to it, opened up, and poked her head out. To her surprise, the window had a large ledge and the window next door, the room that would belong to the locked door, had an open window. Of course it was, the mage needed to chant for the battle outside.

Maybe she could just... climb to the other side. She kept the window open but walked back to the other two.

"Of course you would go after a window," Rylar mumbled.

"I have an idea though! If you guys can draw the person to the door... like Rykuu could bang on it something, then I could just climb out that window and into the other window!" she shouted in a whisper.

"That is too dangerous," Rykuu mumbled. "I am hesitant about bashing the door open but I will if I have to."

"But I can do it, no problem! I've climbed on smaller ledges before," she mumbled. It was true. When she was bored and in the desert, she often climbed out her window. Stefan and Duma tried to stop her, trying to lock her window or moving her room to the bottom level so she had nothing to climb onto but they eventually just gave up and let her do her own thing, so long as she promised to be careful.

"Well, hopefully that's true..." Rylar mumbled. "But... I still don't like the idea of you doing things like that. I don't want you to get hurt. I don't know what I do if I lost another person I cared about." He looked at he ground, shoulders slouching. She froze for a moment, not sure just how to process that. She wasn't sure if she ever heard Rylar say he cared about her, especially while looking so serious. When did that happen? Did he have feelings for her? No, no, no, that was probably just a stretch. Just because he cared didn't mean he felt that way.

Or maybe that was how Arum and Elli seemed so oblivious to their feelings towards each other. It was so obvious to her, and to others in their group, that their feelings were more than just platonic but neither seemed willing to admit it. Was she blind to Rylar's feelings?

She snapped back to reality. She had no time for that.

"I'll be careful. I'm a professional."

"If you say so."

Without further delay, Aletta climbed out the window, planting her feet firmly on the ledge. She took a moment to admire the view under the ledge, admiring how even the wyverns looked small to her. The next ledge was further away than she originally thought it was but she was sure it was no problem to her. She hugged herself against the wall and then edged her way to the edge of the ledge. She stretched her leg and managed to step onto the next window sill, then stretched her arm to find something to hold onto on the other side but her fingers found nothing but smooth brick.

The window sills were on the same level but the thought of having to shift her weight from one foot to the other over a gap two stories from the ground made her nervous. She didn't have much room to stick out her arms for more balance either. She took a deep breath and just moved, shifting her weight to the foot on the other ledge. She knew that the longer she stayed there, the more nervous she would get and then she would get stuck. Aletta had to be fearless to be so high up.

She took a deep breath, celebrating the fact that she got to the other window sill for just a moment before climbing into the room. The mage there was at the door, with their arms pushing against the door. She could hear scratching and banging on the other side, and Rylar's voice mocking the mage on the other side. She opened her tome and chanted quietly, since she didn't seem to be noticed, she wanted to keep whatever element of surprise she had.

The stranger turned around before she could finish chanting but she didn't stop, even as the other mage lunged to knock the tome out of her hands. It took a little bit, or rather a lot, of practice with Syrin for her to be able to chant through the shock of people going after her and the instinct to just run. Her spell hit the mage before they could do anything to her tome. Unfortunately for her, it didn't take long for them to shrug off the spell, just like how Syrin could shrug of their spells.

Right. It was mage against mage, and of course somebody who could use dark magic would have high resistance. Aletta bolted to the door, thanking her laguz blood for her speed, and unlocked it, throwing it open and nearly hitting Rykuu with it. She ducked behind Rykuu as Rylar aimed his bow and fired an arrow through the mage's skull.

Rykuu shifted back into his beorc form. "Are you alright, Aletta?"

"I'm fine. I wasn't hit," she answered.

"We still have a whole floor though," Rylar mumbled, fidgeting with his quiver before he proceeded to walk down the hall. He rolled his shoulders, like he was trying to relax, but Aletta could tell that he was still bothered by something. He never seemed to mourn for the people he killed so he doubted that the dead mage was even on his mind. What was it then? What he said earlier? "I hope none of the other doors are locked."

"Hopefully. I will force them open if they are," Rykuu stated. He paused though, glancing at Rylar. "Is there something that is bothering you?" So she wasn't the only one who noticed.

"No, nothing's wrong. Let's just sweep the floor and meet up with everybody else."

He wasn't fooling anybody but they let it go for now. There was a time and a place for everything, Duma used to say, and the palace probably wasn't the place to try to get more out of Rylar.

"Are you sure? You're not upset that I went out the window?" Aletta asked.

Rylar spun around. "I wasn't upset! Just worried that you did something so risky and it didn't need to be done that way."

"You are upset," Rykuu noted but Rylar didn't seem to be paying any attention to him.

"But I wanted to do it that way! It's not just something that's fun for me, it's something that just feels right to me. I had the chance to do something important with a weird habit that has no purpose elsewhere," she said quietly, preferring to stare at her boots. "I'm proud of myself."

Rylar didn't respond. Rykuu patted them both on the shoulders.

"We need to go."

Just taking a look at one room told Peter that they might not see any action but they weren't surprised by that. The room they walked into was the biggest bedroom he had ever seen, not that giant rooms in the castle truly compared to the tent he spent most of his time in the rebellion in, the tiny fort rooms, or the small personal space that he had inside of the church of Ashunera that he devoted his life to. He lived in small spaces for most of his life and felt pretty comfortable in those. He didn't need a big room. As long as he had room to sleep in and somewhere to store the small amount of belongings he had, he was good to go. He often exercised outside of those spaces anyway.

The centre of the room contained a very large bed that was pushed to the side of the wall, with four posts and expensive looking fabrics hanging from them. The room had a lot of big pieces of furniture, such as vanity, a wardrobe, and various round tables completely with some chairs set around them. It had a private washing room. The room was bright – the curtains were a reddish-orange, there were yellow vases, paintings of people he couldn't recognize, the chairs had yellow cushions, and there were paintings of yellow flowers.

All in all, he felt that the space and the amount of resources that went into decorating the room could have been put to a different use. At least the church he worked at would get some more funds thanks to King Adrien and even though they would probably burn through those funds rather quickly, it was all gold that would be used to help people. They weren't out to make a profit but they couldn't work off of their desire to help people. It didn't buy food, provide everything they needed to heal and deal with injuries, nor did it keep a maintained building and beds over their heads.

"Wow, this place is huge!" Chifee shouted as he ran into the room and belly flopped onto the bed. Gus chased after him and pulled him off gently, lecturing him gently. Chifee didn't protest as Peter set about smoothing the sheets, as he felt it was inappropriate to leave behind a mess in somebody's space. "But this would like Kaetar's room would be like, wouldn't it? Except, it might have books."

"I imagine he might have a small library in his room," Gus said. "Maybe he'll let you into the Daein castle when this is all over. But we have to look through these rooms first though."

Chifee nodded and ran out of the room. Peter approached Gus as they both followed after him at a slower pace, watching carefully as Chifee ran down the hall.

"He's great practice for raising your own child at least," Peter said calmly. He dealt with kids before, since kids were unfortunately, not immune to illness and injuries. However, the beorc children did act a lot like Chifee, at least the ones that had something to be happy about, something to look forward to, and somebody to support them. A child was a child, it didn't matter if they were a beorc, laguz, or even branded.

"He is. I'm just glad that Darius doesn't seem to mind all that much. I'm just nervous, is all," Gus said with a sigh. "I don't know being a father is like. I was an orphan for most my life and I'm not out of the orphanage because I got adopted. We both just got too old for them to justify keeping us around."

"I'm sorry to hear about your parents, Gus," Peter said quietly, watching as Chifee hugged the wall at the corner and peered over. Peter wondered if he saw something they should be worried about. "But I don't think you need a father to know what it's like to raise a child. You'll do fine. Just do what feels right and just know that mistakes happen. You won't be a perfect parent and that's fine. There's no question that you and Meagan would be loving parents."

"You sound just like Zeke."

Peter chuckled a little. "The world would be a lot better if everybody was a bit more like Zeke. But we have a job to do. We should at least look through the rooms to see if anybody is actually here."

They both had to run to catch up with Chifee. If Chifee was running around like he might as well have been playing outside, then maybe nobody was around. If there was something wrong, Chifee would have been the first to notice with his heightened laguz senses but instead, he just seemed to be trying to entertain himself. They turned the corner and found another bedroom. It was just as spacious as the other room but it also looked used recently. The bed was unmade and there were papers all over the vanity. A discarded robe hung off the back of one of the chairs, covered with a light dusting of sand.

Peter collected the notes from the vanity. The notes looked to be at least partially about magical theory, as if somebody was making notes on what to try next or just writing their thoughts down about it. Everything he saw seemed to be in an questioning and quizzical tone, so he didn't know if they were of any use but he decided that it was better to keep them, just in case. Peter folded the sheets and slipped them behind the cover of his tome, then placed the tome back into his robes since he doubted he would have a use for it anyway. He could probably count the number of times he used the thing properly on both of his hands anyway. Nothing else looked out of place, so they left the room.

"A balcony!" Chifee called out suddenly, opening the double doors that led outside. He certainly was more interested in the balcony then he was in any of the rooms they went in but it could just be that he liked outside and high up. Peter and Gus followed him cautiously. The balcony was facing the courtyard, so when they opened the door, they could see the battle and hear the battle going on beneath them.

"It looks like the tides are beginning to turn," Gus mumbled. Peter agreed. They weren't being brought back faster than the Daeins were taking them down. At that rate, it might not be too long before Daeins could begin storming the castle, or cleaning up all of the sand as best they could. The soldiers looked exhausted but otherwise, nothing seemed wrong with them.

"Look over there!" Chifee mumbled as he pointed out something in the battlefield. Peter blinked and looked toward the direction he was pointing in. "Do you guys recognize any of them?" At first, Peter couldn't exactly see who had the little one's attention but then he spotted them. From far away, he couldn't pick out many details about them, but he could see a small group of people that didn't look to be from the rebellion or Daein since they didn't seem to be wearing any sort of metal armour. They fought only when necessary, rushing towards the entrance of the castle instead.

"I wonder if those were the people on the roof when Syrin and Arkit were talking," Gus mumbled. "At least the number is about the same. I wonder what they want so badly though. They might have kept things active in Melior while we weren't there but that doesn't explain why they would want to be inside the castle so badly."

"I just hope they don't get hurt. They seem decent enough fighters but this place is still dangerous," Peter said with a sigh.

Chifee shrugged. "Except for up here."

"Except for up here," Gus agreed with a small nod.

They stood there for a moment longer, until Chifee held up his hand to his face to shield his eyes from the sun and began squinting and leaning on the railing. "I think that's Loiya and Zeke back there with Kaetar's father."

Peter felt his heart leap. Zeke was not ready to be on the battlefield yet, he still had a noticeable limp and he would certainly grow tired and put himself at risk. He had no idea what kind of condition Loiya was in but since he was in the hands of Crimea for an unknown period of time, then there was no telling how wounded he was.

"Are they fighting or just standing around?" Peter asked, unable to keep the worry out of his voice. Chifee looked alarmed by the change in his voice. They shouldn't be close to the castle anyway but he supposed it was their right to be there. He would feel better if they were just spectators but it just didn't seem like them to simply watch.

"A little bit. There aren't as many of the sandy guys back there."

"But they shouldn't be here at all! Zeke's lucky that Liam remembered he had something else he should be doing and Loiya's lucky that he somehow got out of Crimea's hands without the main group being there to help him get out. Loiya's stubbornness doesn't surprise me but Zeke should know better!"

"Peter, I think they probably know how far they should be allowed to go. They're not running with that other group. If they really wanted to get inside the castle, then they would have gone with the entourage."

Peter wasn't comforted by Gus' words. He had to see how they were himself and drag them both to a bed when the battle was over. However, there wasn't much he could do. He couldn't just run through the battlefield to get to them, especially since there could be injuries inside of the castle. He didn't know how the other floors were like in terms of activity and only two groups had a healer with them. There was also the matter of Syrin, who also should also be resting since he still looked a little ragged from the time he nearly killed himself with magic. Syrin got better enough to function but he needed more rest than he allowed himself to have. He was already at a disadvantage and he was going off to face the one who insulted Ashunera!

Syrin always ran himself a little thin and he was facing a dangerous situation.

"C'mon, we need to look through the rest of the floor. I doubt there's anything here but we should still go see. If nothing else, we can go meet with everybody else. They might need you." Gus placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Yes, we still have a job to do."

I didn't have as much trouble with this as I thought I would. It's all about finding the right person to narrate.

In other news, Syrin's confrontation and the aftermath shall be in the next chapter. After that, there will probably be one more chapter, which might include small epilogue bits. I haven't decided yet if they should be their own chapter. We shall see! But regardless, we are almost done! It's only taken... several years.